


A Death in the Desert

by lucidscreamer



Series: 100 Yu-Gi-Oh Prompts [42]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Archaeologist Yami, Egypt, Egyptology, Gen, Mummies, Murder, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26864326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucidscreamer/pseuds/lucidscreamer
Summary: Noa Kaiba has plans for the newly discovered mummy of the sorcerer Anubis.Plans that involve archaeologist Yami Mutou.Plans that, unless Yami gets very lucky, could end in his death.
Series: 100 Yu-Gi-Oh Prompts [42]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1266368
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	A Death in the Desert

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is the creation of Kazuki Takahashi. No ownership of the canon characters, settings, or events is claimed and none should be implied.
> 
> Prompts:  
> 29\. Blood, Threat, and Fears (31 Days of Halloween)  
> 6\. Cemetery/ Mausoleum (Paranormal 25)  
> 15\. Resurrection of the Dead (30 Sci-Fi Prompts)  
> 64\. Black Magic (100 YGO Themes)  
> 09\. Knife (Horror 50)
> 
> Series: Light of Egypt (probably)
> 
> In the same universe as Little Shadow, Tiny Sun but takes place much later, when Yami is an adult. (I THINK this is going to be in the same universe as my Ryou Bakura series, Light of Egypt.)

Standing in the close confines of the narrow tomb passage, Yami Mutou filled the final basket and passed it to the man behind him. Stretching away down the passage and out into the unrelenting sun of the Egyptian desert, a steady stream of baskets passed from hand to hand, carrying dirt and shards of stone away from the excavation

The quiet, steady hum of activity in the lonely wadi was suddenly disturbed by the sound of rapid-fire Japanese as a tall, thin man shoved his way through the basket line. A moment later, Yami could just make out the insults the other man was shouting at the workers. He grimaced, recognizing the voice of the expedition's primary benefactor. Dusting off his gloved hands, Yami climbed out of the tomb in time to see a few of the workmen make surreptitious signs to ward off the Evil Eye. He wondered who the signs were directed at: him or the man striding toward him like the wrath of a particularly dapper god.

Unlike Yami, who was in his shirtsleeves, Noa Kaiba wore a meticulously brushed wool suit, complete with waistcoat, a boiled shirt with stiffly starched collar and cuffs, a silk necktie, and a stuffy little hat that did nothing to shield him from the sun. No doubt he had looked quite dapper when he left his hotel, but now he was sweaty and covered in dust, as was the dumpy little man trailing in his wake.

"Why didn't you send for me?" Noa's face was flushed from exertion and the relentless heat -- and from his infamous temper. "You've finally cleared the bloody shaft. Did you not think I would want to be here when you opened the tomb, you insufferable cretin?"

Yami reminded himself that he would be doing his adopted father no favors by punching one of his patrons in the nose. "I planned to send for you once we were ready to go inside, Mister Kaiba."

"What are you talking about, Mutou? The men have removed most of the debris blocking the entrance, as I can see with my own eyes. I demand you step aside at once!"

Mouth thinning even further, Yami frowned at Noa's flushed face and shook his head. "No."

Noa's eyes bugged out. "How _dare_ you refuse me. I'll have you know that this expedition would not even be possible without the monetary contributions of my family. How dare you presume to--"

"We must make accurate drawings and photographs of the seals before we destroy the door." There was something strange about those seals. They were not the usual necropolis seals, though given the location of this tomb so far out in the desert, perhaps that was to be expected. Still, it was a mystery Yami wanted to solve. "It will need but an hour or so to make the necessary--"

"Who cares about the blasted doorway seals?" Noa shouted. "All that's important is what lies within the tomb, not some fiddly bits of mud and plaster. I want that door opened at once." He turned around and shouted to his associate, hesitating behind a wall of sharp-eyed men in dusty jellabiya. "Whittle! Get down here -- and bring a sledge hammer!"

"Stay where you are!" Yami shouted. 

The gathered workmen shifted as if uncertain who to throw their support behind. None of them cared for Noa's arrogant attitude, but neither were they comfortable with Yami. They would work for him, but none of them spoke to him if the job didn't require it. It was an attitude Yami had lived with all his life. With the persistent rumors that circulated about him, Yami had never fit in with his countrymen. His birth-parents had seemingly abandoned him to the streets when he was too young to remember them. If Solomon Mutou and his wife had not taken Yami in, he had no doubt that he would not have survived. 

"Whittle!" Noa's voice was sharp-edged and grating, forcing Yami's thoughts back to the present. "Stop dillydallying. I want to get into the tomb _today_."

"Stay where you are, Mister Whittle." Stalking forward, Yami placed himself between Noa and the tomb entrance. "I will not allow you to destroy important historical evidence simply to satisfy your impatience. If this burial does turn out to be undisturbed since the time of the pharaohs, every bit of information is important to our understanding of--"

"I don't give a damn about historical evidence, I want to know what is inside that bloody tomb!"

Yami's eyebrows shot toward his hairline. Of course, he had long suspected that the Kaibas' interest in the tomb was inspired more by greed for golden treasure than any quest for historical knowledge, but he was unhappy to have his assessment confirmed. Yami had no respect for a man who placed greed above knowledge.

Yami narrowed his eyes at Noa. "Look, to do things properly will only take a little more time--"  
  
"Nonsense." Noa dismissed Yami's objections with a wave of one hand. "I'll take full responsibility." As if that would make a difference. Wanton destruction was wanton destruction, no matter who took the blame. "Give me that hammer, Whittle. You're useless. I'll do it myself."

And before Yami could stop him, Noa had snatched the hammer from his associate's hand and marched into the tomb.

* * *

  
Beyond the destroyed doorway lay a small antechamber carved out of the rock. To everyone's disappointment, they found only an empty room with bare stone walls. The rock still bore the tool marks of the ancient workmen and had not been smoothed or plastered over, much less decorated. Perhaps it had been intended to be a tomb, but the work seemed to have been scarcely started.

"So, not an untouched tomb after all?" Whittle asked uncertainly. He had followed Yami and Noa so silently that Yami had almost forgotten the man's presence until Whittle spoke. 

Glancing back over his shoulder, Yami was half-amused, half-annoyed to see that Whittle was clutching the sledge hammer that Noa had returned to him after using it to smash the plaster doorway. "Please be careful with that, Mister Whittle. You might damage something."

"What? _Rock_?" Noa scoffed. "There's nothing here to damage."

But Yami was already moving further into the chamber, raising his lantern so he could peer at the far wall. As the darkness parted before the light, he spotted the deeper shadow tucked into one corner. "There's another room back here."

* * *

  
Despite Noa's objections, they had been forced to wait long enough for one of the workers to bring lanterns down into the tomb before venturing into the second doorway. Holding a lantern aloft, Yami stepped cautiously into the darkness.

The burial chamber was nothing like he had expected. There were no scenes from the deceased's life painted on the walls, no spells from the Book of Going Forth by Day. But the walls here were not blank as they were in the outer chamber. No, here the walls were covered in hastily scrawled spells -- meant not to ward the deceased soul and guard his journey through the dangerous ways of the afterlife, but to constrain the soul and the mummy to this suffocating chamber. To deny the deceased Justification in the afterlife or even oblivion by having his heart eaten by Ammit, the Devourer. The spells, if Yami was reading them correctly (and he knew he was), were meant to bind the soul of the dead sorcerer to the tomb and to prevent it from accessing the afterlife.

An awed sigh escaped him as he stared at the red and black hieratic script covering the walls. The spells had been scrawled in apparent haste, making the highly cursive writing even more difficult to read. Yami had always had an unusual affinity for reading and understanding the ancient writing. Father often joked that Yami must have been a scribe in a past life. Now, Yami moved along the walls of the chamber, the fingertips of his free hand drifting inches above the surface of the wall as they traced the words, lips moving as he tried to fathom their meanings. 

Some of the lines were rather virulent curses against the dead man. What had this man done? Yami wondered, as he slowly paced along the wall. At last, he came to an inscription that gave him a part of an answer.

"'…the evil one who hath trespassed against the majesty of the king,'" Yami read, the words a bare murmur passing his lips. So that was it. This man, this sorcerer, had committed some crime against the pharaoh and in doing so had signed his own death warrant. "Treason. No wonder--" 

Still, the man's crimes must have been spectacular to warrant such treatment as this. Yami was almost surprised the ancient Egyptians had bothered to inter the body of someone so hated. Perhaps they had not wanted to take the chance that his soul might escape its eternal punishment otherwise.

"This is it." The voice, unexpected in the hush of the tomb, sounded almost reverent. 

Startled by the unexpected sound, Yami turned to find Noa and Whittle bent over the sarcophagus in the center of the room. They were examining their find closely and ignored Yami when he strode over to demand, "What have you found?"

"The mummy of the sorcerer Anubis. It has to be!" Noa proclaimed, his excitement evident in his sharp, jerky movements and the higher pitch of his voice. "Come and see! We have found the great man at last."

"'Great man'?" Yami did not bother to temper the disdain in his voice, nor his incredulity. "Not according to the inscriptions on these walls. Whatever else he may have been, this man was also a traitor to his Pharaoh."

"Oh, yes," Noa agreed absently, his focus still on the stone lid of what Yami now saw was an enormous sarcophagus resting in the exact center of the burial chamber. "He tried to murder his king and take his place on the throne of the Two Lands. He wanted to rule Egypt -- and, I've no doubt, the whole of the world. Our Anubis was not a man lacking in ambition." 

Noa chuckled at his own wit, and Whittle copied him.

Yami's eyes widened, then narrowed with fresh suspicion. "How do you know all this?" 

"Oh, I know a great deal about this gentleman, I assure you, Mutou. I have done my homework, as the Americans say." His lips pursed in a gesture of distaste. "Such a vulgar and uncultured people…"

Taking exception to the slander, Yami bristled. Father was of Japanese ancestry, but he had made his home in New York before settling in Egypt (had met and married Chane there, in fact), and Yami's older brother Esau lived there now with his own family. Why, Yugi had been born there! "Now, wait just a minute--"

"It is of no importance." Noa waved off the offense with a negligent hand. "All that matters now is what lies here before us -- the mummy of Anubis!"

Before Yami could lift a hand to stop them, or even voice further objections, the other two men had thrown their combined weight against the closed lid of the sarcophagus. Muscles straining, they slowly shoved the heavy lid to one side. Yami held his breath, but thankfully the enormous lid did not go crashing to the floor. He would have liked to document it in situ before they disturbed it, but since they had stolen that option from him, he could only count his blessings that they had not dropped the lid to the floor, perhaps cracking it or even shattering it before he could document the inscriptions carved in deep relief on its surface. Still, he could not help objecting to their cavalier treatment of a priceless artifact.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?! We have to take things slowly, document everything before--"

"I am not interested in your childish drawings and measurement, Mutou," Noa sneered. "The only reason my father and I paid for this excavation was to find the mummy of Anubis. We do not care for archaeology or history, only this. And now that I have what I came for, what my father entrusted me to find, I have no further use for your 'expertise'… Or for _you_."

Yami had not noticed Whittle moving stealthily around behind him. He gave a short, startled cry as Whittle brought the sledge hammer's wooden handle down hard on the back of Yami's skull, sending bright sparks of pain shooting across his vision. 

Then everything slid into darkness and Yami knew no more.

* * *

  
Yami woke to the mother of all headaches. A groan escaped him before he could consider the wisdom of alerting his assailant to the fact that he was once again among the living. But what was done was done, so Yami bit his lip to stifle any further noises and slowly cracked open his eyes.

Dim lighting and flickering shadows met his confused gaze. He blinked up at an uneven stone ceiling, dingy with a film of smoke and dust, that seemed far closer than it should have been. Yami lay still, attempting to reconnect his mind with his body, which seemed to be made entirely of aches and pains. He was lying on something hard and cold, and incredibly uncomfortable. It took a further moment for the realization to strike that he was stark naked.   
The shock was enough to finish the process of waking him up completely.

Yami tried to sit up and found himself quite unable to move. He strained his neck, trying to see what was holding him down and found himself bound at wrists and ankles to the stone lid of the sarcophagus. He struggled against the ropes and only succeeded in making them bite deeper into his bare flesh. Even if he could have forced a bit of slack into the rope, he had no access to anything with which to cut them. Along with his clothing, his trusty knife was long gone.

It was difficult to even turn his head, but he managed it by increments until he could examine his surroundings. On his right side was nothing but open space and the wall of the burial chamber. On his other side…

Slowly, he turned his head to the left -- and fought back a startled scream. Staring back at him with empty eye sockets was the resin-blackened, desiccated face of a mummified corpse. 

Yami panted, struggling against his bonds and the instinct to flee. His heart pounded in his chest, but after a few seconds, he got himself back under control enough to study the horrible thing resting beside him. Dirty, ragged scraps of linen clung here and there to the shriveled body of the mummy. The eyes had been gouged from their sockets, leaving gaping holes in the skull that nonetheless seemed to return his stare. Beneath a thin nose, the lip-less mouth gaped wide to reveal yellowed teeth and a leathery black thing that might have been the corpse's tongue. Wisps of light colored hair still clung to the thing's skull.

"Ah, I see you are awake."

Turning his head painfully, Yami watched Noa Kaiba saunter into the burial chamber. "Kaiba," Yami growled. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Untie me at once!"

"Oh, I don't think that I will. I have other plans for you and I cannot risk you attempting to run away." Smirking, Noa leaned over him, reaching out to slide his fingers into Yami's hair and yank his head back at a painful angle. "You should feel honored. You are about to take part in an historic event."

Somehow, Yami did not feel honored -- or comforted. He tried to jerk his head free from Noa's ungentle grasp. "I don't know what you're talking about and I don't care. Let me go!"

"My dear Mister Mutou, you are in no position to be issuing orders." Noa laughed cruelly. 

"I don't know what you think you're doing, Kaiba, but--" Yami began, only to have the other man cut him off with a nasty laugh.

"No, of course you don't. How could you? But you would like to know, wouldn't you? Who wouldn't want to know that they were about to take part in an historic occasion?"

"And what occasion would that be?" Yami asked, cautiously. It was clear to him that Noa was mad. As discretely as possible, Yami fumbled at the only knot he could reach, straining his wrist to reach. He had to get free!

"Why, _your death_ of course. Not that your death is the historic part. No, that would be the resurrection of the master sorcerer Anubis." Noa gestured grandly to the shriveled corpse lying beside Yami.

The mummy?! This mad man was planning to kill Yami in order to bring a three thousand year old mummy back to life? Insanity! "You're out of your mind!"

"On the contrary, my dear fellow. But--" Noa leered. "-- I dare say _you_ are about to have an out of _body_ experience."

Lunatic! The man belonged in an asylum somewhere, where he could not hurt innocent bystanders -- like Yami -- not traipsing around in the desert, plotting to murder innocent excavators. Yami threw himself against his bonds with renewed desperation. "Let me go!"

"I'm afraid not. You see, your soul is vitally important to my plan. I need it and your life force to bring Lord Anubis back to life."

And just what was Yami supposed to gain from this plan except an untimely death? "What do you get out of this mad scheme? Do you really think this Anubis guy is going to, what? Grant you three wishes?"

Noa threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, I think he will be quite grateful to me for restoring him to life. But I am not relying solely on the whims of a resurrected dead man to get my just rewards."

"Do you know how insane that sounds?"

"I assure you, I am not mad. I know exactly what I'm doing -- and I mean exactly what I am saying." Noa turned to his waiting manservant and held out his hand. "Whittle, do you have it?"

"Yes, sir." Whittle held up a bundle of purple velvet cloth, which he passed to his master. 

Smiling a smile that sent fresh chills down Yami's spine, Noa slowly unwrapped the cloth. His movements were almost reverent. The velvet fell away to reveal a long, silvery blade with an elaborate hilt. Trepidation -- and an unpleasant premonition -- shot through Yami as he eyed the blade glinting in the lantern light. "What are you planning to do with that?"

"You will see," Noa crooned with obvious delight. "Oh, yes. You will see!"

Yami was quite certain that he did not want to see what Noa had planned for the knife -- or him. Noa's next words did absolutely nothing to bolster Yami's confidence in his ability to survive the night.

"Do you recall the paper you submitted to the _Peabody Journal of Near Eastern Studies_?" Noa asked in a deceptively conversational tone.

The seeming non-sequitur threw Yami off balance for a second. He mentally fumbled for the appropriate response, then blurted out, "What?"

"Your translation of the spells from the Book of a Thousand Years' Magics," Noa said. "Surely you remember it? I read it several times, as it was quite fascinating. In fact, you could say it was the final key that brought us all to this moment -- well, aside from finding the actual mummy, of course."

Oh, of course. Mustn't forget the mummy. Yami resisted the urge to laugh. "You think you can use those spells to bring this mummy back to life? You really are insane."

"Have you so little faith in your own translations?" Noa casually ran the long blade of the ceremonial dagger along Yami's cheek. "Is it not ironic? The very spells that you translated will be the instrument of your death."

"Oh, yeah, the irony is very… ironic." Yami fought down the bile rising in his throat. His hands were tingling and he wondered if the ropes around his wrists were cutting off the circulation. He couldn't get a grip on the knots and so couldn't untie them. He was about to die in a musty old tomb, killed by a madman in order to bring an ancient mummy back to life. It was like something out of a dime novel. 

"Don't look so gloomy! This is a moment unique in history. You will be the first scholar to find out whether your recreation of an ancient spell actually works -- and by participating as one of the main components of the spell, at that! Is this not a great honor?"

"I think I'll pass, thanks. So, if you'd be so kind as to untie me, I'll be on my way."

"Oh, no, my dear Mister Mutou. I could never do that and deprive you of this -- dare I say it? -- once in a lifetime opportunity."

It was an 'opportunity' that Yami would gladly pass up. However, it did not appear Noa would give him the option. 

In addition to the knife, Yami saw that the other man now held a small silver bowl filled with some kind of foul smelling liquid. Before Yami could voice his objections, Noa upended the bowl over Yami's body, pouring the odoriferous concoction over his bare torso. The cold liquid stung his skin everywhere it touched. Yami could feel the nasty stuff dribbling down his chest and along his ribs. Lifting a second, identical looking bowl, Noa repeated the process with the mummy, coating its chest with the mysterious liquid. Yami tried to speak but he found his throat tightening, cutting off his voice. What was happening to him? 

With Whittle assisting him, Noa finished preparing the 'altar' for the ritual. Yami tried to make sense of what was happening but the liquid, which he now realized must have been some sort of drug absorbed through the skin, made it difficult for him to focus. His vision blurred and the room danced with strange, distorted shadows and flickering points of oddly colored lights. Yami panted, finding it harder with every breath to draw enough air into his straining lungs.

Things were graying out at the edges when Noa loomed over him again. Noa was grinning in triumph, silver knife blade glinting in one hand and scroll in the other. Through the buzz in his ears, Yami could just make out the sound of a chant falling from Noa's lips as he read from the scroll.

The chant was so much gibberish to Yami, though when Noa switched back to English, those words were almost as incomprehensible. Perhaps it was not Noa's speech, but Yami's hearing that was at fault. The darkening room spun dizzily around him.

"Thank you, Mister Mutou. Your contributions will be greatly remembered," Noa said.

And plunged the ceremonial knife into Yami's heart.

* * *

  
Noa screamed in impotent rage as a storm of shadows erupted in the burial chamber. They spun a black cocoon around Yami Mutou's lifeless corpse, hiding it from view and deflecting the magic that should have allowed the reborn Anubis to take possession of Mutou's body. There was a flash of purple, negative light and then the shadows were gone -- and so was Mutou. The ceremonial blade that had stabbed through his heart clattered onto the lid of the sarcophagus, splattering the blood that had pooled there... and then that, too, vanished as the blood sank into the stone so cleanly it left not even a stain behind.

"No! Damn you!" Noa's hands scrabbled at the stone as if he could yank Mutou's corpse back from wherever it had gone. Blast him! What was Noa going to do now? Anubis would demand a human form to inhabit...

As if in response to his frantic thoughts, the mummy slowly turned its head and gazed at him with hungry, glowing red eyes.


End file.
